West Germans Find Liquid Explosives Hidden in Field
Police investigating the Beirut revenge kidnapings of two West Germans said today that after the arrest of a suspected Arab hijacker’s brother they found more than five gallons of liquid high explosives hidden in a field.
The federal prosecutor’s office said the nitroglycerine-type explosives were in bottles with Arabic labels and similar to three bottles found in the possession of Mohammed Ali Hamadi, 22, a Lebanese Palestinian, when he was arrested Jan. 13 at Frankfurt Airport.
The United States is seeking his extradition on charges in the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and the murder of one of its passengers.
West German media reported that police learned of the cache of liquid explosives during a search in the town of Beckingen in the southwest state of Saarland following Monday’s arrest of Hamadi’s brother, Abbas Ali Hamadi, also at Frankfurt Airport.
After that arrest, police raided a private home in Beckingen. The DPA news agency said the raid was at the home of Hamza Kassim, 49, a Lebanese who reportedly knew the Hamadi brothers.
Authorities said they then learned of the explosives hidden in brush in a field about six miles away. Using remote-controlled machines today, they removed the bottles and exploded them in eight separate blasts, witnesses said.
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